The End of Theistic Morality

[bennyboy]

I think it's a bad case to say that those affected by a tragic incident want to harm the murderer and say that because they want to do so something about morality in that instance. Would I? I can't see myself not doing it. But my point is that taking cases where people's emotions are going wild as your standard is inconsistent.

My point is that morality can't be based only on intent and harm starting just before the behavior. It has also to account for the motivations leading to the intent. If I intend to kill someone, and do, because I want his money, that's probably immoral. If I intend to kill someone, and do, because he killed my family, that's justice.

Anyway, it's EXACTLY when people are feeling "full tilt" due to emotional influences that morality is most tried. Anyone can behave morally when they're standing in a bank line waiting to cash their pay check. It's when they are up against dire circumstances that their will to form a non-selfish intent, and act on it, means the most.

He uses that model because he's a consequentialist and those are the facets involved in that type of moral theory. He uses a similar thought experiment, but I think it's less immoral because it didn't cause harm. In other words, I find intentions a bit less morally significant than what actually happens, and you probably do to in many cases.

I think intent is at the core of morality, and the lack of intent to do a necessary good I take as roughly equivalent to a deliberate attempt to do bad. So someone who steps over a choking person, or ignores cries of "rape" is behaving immorally just by the simple act of continuing to walk down the street. Whether the person is really choking or pretending to, or really being raped or pretending to, has nothing to do with the morality of that non-act.

That seems like a straw man. If your intent nor your own motivated actions didn't directly cause something, I doubt you'd consider some ill result that happened as being as immoral. For example, if you sneezed on someone accidentally, and they ended up dying from a disease you unknowingly passed to them, would you consider that as immoral as if you had internationally infected them? Again, I highly doubt it.

You're arguing my point very well. It is the intent that is moral/immoral, not the consequence.

That fails because in that example your causing them mental non-well being purposefully on the chance that they'll believe you won't harm them or their family. And in the case of a dentist, there are no other ways to relieve that instance of pain without inflicting some necessary pain in the short term. The analogy of yours breaks down when you realize there are in fact better waysto do so than negatively impacting the individuals mental well-being.

And this is where, despite the video-maker's claims, the DEFINITION of morality, as well as how to act morally, are in fact subjective, not objective. In my example, the person clearly has the intent to do good by committing a relatively lesser and temporary harm. Maybe he sees himself as a kind of dentist of souls, and believes only his course of action will knock fat uninspired people out of their gluttonous stupor.

Rights can just as easily fit into consequentialism. As long as the right has utility with regards to improving well-being and/or preventing negative impacts to it.

Who gets to decide what constitutes well-being? The actor? The recipient of the act? The majority of a population? The most educated in that population?

The video argues that the definition of morality is objective. It's not. It's just been made so over-generalized that it has no specific meaning. "Morality is doing what is good to do, and not doing what is bad to do." No kidding.

---

Then is that not bringing you mental well-being (pleasure) for relatively little pain? And are you not capable of informing people on what your pleasures are?

The point is given lack of knowledge of what is harmful or beneficial to others, many would turn to their own needs, and project them onto others. It's not wrong for me to be spanked. But what if I see spanking as generally good, and run around spanking others?

What, on the other hand, if an unattractive person in my office announces that he/she can only be happy if he/she is spanked daily. Is it immoral for me to refuse their request, since it does me no real harm and helps someone else?

If they are capable of preventing it without inducing greater harm, then yes. For all your talk of things being waved away, did you not just wave away his exqmple of willful negligence still being immoral on consequentialism?

Intent is the core of morality, not consequence. You are not DOING anything to starving children in Africa, or poor people in your own community. Your non-action has no real consequence to people you've never met.